This Week's Great Day

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 162, 26 June 1926, Page 9

This Week's Great Day

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Charles Conway

JUNE n 2Sth. »

Captain Cook’s Last Voyage (Copyrighted).

nXE HUNDRED AND FIFTY years ago, on the 25tk. June, 1776, Captain James Cook, one of the most illustrious of British explorers, sailed away from England on the last of lus three famous voyages.

He was the son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, and.at the age of 12 lie was taken from school and aprenticed to a village haberdasher, but in a short time he took to the sea and lor many years he seived on a line ot trading vessels, during which period he studied incessantly to remedy the scantiness of his early education.

At the age of 27 he entered the Royal Navy as a common seaman, but within four years he had risen to the rank of navigating officer, ami it was in this capacity that lie was attached to Gen. Wolfe’s memorable expedition to Canada in 1759, when he was responsible for the charting of the river St. Lawrence from Quebec to the sea. In 1763 he was appointed marine surveyor of the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and four years later he published a book on navigation of the solar eclipse of 1767 and then established Ins reputation as a mathematician and astronomer.

He started on the first of his three famous voyages in 1768. After successfully’ observing the transit of Venus from the Island of Tahiti, which was the primary object of the expedition, he proceeded to carry out his secondary commission, which was to ascertain whether the unexplored part of the southern hemisphere was only an immense mass of water or contained another continent. He explored the Society Islands and then circumnavigated and charted the. coasts of New Zealand, but he was unable to explore the inferior of the country owing to the hostility of the

natives. On the 19th. April 1770 he sighted the eastern coast of Australia, and on the 28th. of the month, anchored in Botany Bay, where he landed and hoisted thc Union Jack, thus taking possession of the great island continent lor the British Crown. in 1772 he commenced his second voyage, and niudo a perilous passage through the polar seas in a vain search lor an Antarctic continent. He afterwards visitea New Zealand for a second time, and then explored the islands of the Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans, where he made numerous valuable discoveries. His third and last voyage was undertaken with the object of discovering the North-West Passage. ' fter visiting the Cape of Good Mope, Tasmania ana New Zealand, he re-discovered the Hawiian Islands, and then proceeded northwards up the Pacific. Je thoroughly explored the Canadian and Siberian coasts, but finding Bering- Straits blocked with a wall of ice ho returned south to Hawaii, where he set a tragic death. On the morning of the 14th. February 1779 he landed on the island with a small party of marines for the purpose of recovering one of his ship’s boats, which had been stolen by the natives during the night Finding that the islanders were hostile and that his small force was hopelessly outnumbered he ordered a retreat to the boats. He was the last to retire, and as ho was nearing the shore lie was felled to the ground by a blow from behind. He rose and made a vigorous fight for his life, but was speedily overpowered and slain. His body was partly burned by the natives, hut some of his remains were afterwards recovered and buried.